Visit

Extreme Makeover: The Comics Edition

Wed, Oct 10, 2012

On October 10, join Jeff Yang, editor of the new graphic novel collection SHATTERED and curator of Marvels & Monsters and Alt.Comics, as he and a celebrity panel of comic book authors and artists discuss how stereotypes ruin stories and turn characters into cliches. The fun really begins when we invite leading local graphic novelists to share their own "Comic Book Extreme Makeovers”. Panelists include Keith Chow, Larry Hama, Jerry Ma, and Greg Pak.

Admission: $5 non-members/$3 students and seniors/ free for MOCA members.

RSVP required to programs@mocanyc.org

Featured panelists bios:

Jeff Yang is a veteran communications professional whose career in media and marketing has spanned over a decade and a half, and included multiple successful media and marketing startups. He was the founder of aMagazine: Inside Asian America.

For the seven years, Yang wrote Asian Pop, a biweekly column on Asian and Asian American media, entertainment, technology and culture for the San Francisco Chronicle; in October 2011, he launched a new weekly column, Tao Jones, for the Wall Street Journal Online. He is a frequent contributor to WNYC radio, as a pundit on PRI's "The Takeaway" and as "Pop & Politics" correspondent for "The Brian Lehrer Show."

Yang has authored and edited a number of bestselling books, including Eastern Standard Time; I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action (the international action hero's official autobiography); Once Upon a Time in China; and the new graphic novel collection, Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.

Larry Hama is a cartoonist, illustrator, writer, actor, and musician who has worked in the fields of entertainment and publishing since the 1960s. He is a third generation Japanese American (sansei) who was born in New York City and graduated from the High School of Art & Design in midtown Manhattan. He served in the US Army from 1969 to 1971, during the Vietnam War. Upon his discharge, Hama became, and remains active in the Asian American community in New York City.

During the 1970s, he was seen in minor roles on the TV shows M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live, and appeared on Broadway in two roles in the original 1976 production of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures.

While Hama has worked on numerous projects, he is best known to American comic book readers as a writer and editor for Marvel Comics, where he wrote the licensed comic book series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. He has also written for the series Wolverine, Avengers, Batman, Conan, The Punisher, Blaze, Nth Man, and Elektra. He created the character Bucky O’Hare, which was developed into a comic book, a toy line and television cartoon.

Jerry Ma was born in New York, studied cartooning and illustration at the School of Visual Arts. While working as a fashion graphics designer after college, he began drawing comics inspired by martial arts films and other Hong Kong action cinema, often in collaboration with his brothers.

Ma's short story “Burn” was selected for Digital Webbing’s first graphic novel collection, and quickly became a cult hit. Ma and his brothers founded Epic Proportions, an indie graphics studio, to publish Burn as an ongoing series, along with other titles they and their friends created. In 2009, Ma met Keith Chow, Jeff Yang and Parry Shen, who became his co-editors on the graphic novel Secret Identities — the first-ever anthology of Asian American superhero stories by Asian American creators.

Greg Pak is a filmmaker and comic book writer best known for directing the award-winning feature film "Robot Stories," writing the epic "Planet Hulk" and "World War Hulk" comic book storylines, and co-writing (with Fred Van Lente) the fan favorite "Incredible Hercules" series for Marvel Comics. Current projects include the acclaimed sci-fi graphic novel and iPad app "Vision Machine" as well as "X-Treme X-Men," "Doctor Strange Season One," and "Dead Man's Run." Pak was named one of 25 Filmmakers to Watch by Filmmaker Magazine, described as "a talent with a future" by the New York Times, and named "Breakout Talent" of the year by Wizard Magazine.

Pak studied political science at Yale University, history at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and film production at the NYU graduate film program.